- What happens if zeros are added instead of cyclic prefix in OFDM system?
- How does it affect performance of system?
The main idea of using Cyclic prefix in OFDM systems is because of 2 reasons,
1) To eliminate ISI from previous symbol.
2) To model linear convolution as circular convolution
If an OFDM symbol is Zero padded instead of cyclic prefix, ISI due to adjacent symbol still gets eliminated, but it cannot be modeled using circular convolution. Circular convolution converts frequency selective multipath channel into flat fading channel. Circular convolution simplifies channel estimation and equalization which can be done easily in Frequency domain.
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$\begingroup$ if you are familiar with Simulink, have a look to this model behindthesciences.com/useful-links/ltesimulinkmodel where you can modify the CP with the zero padding and check the effect that @spectre commented. $\endgroup$ – Behind The Sciences Mar 29 '16 at 6:20